The SJR produces timely updates and in-depth analysis on news and information of interests to Chinese in America and Americans in China.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Fudan Scissorhands

I read on MITBBS today about a graduate student of Fudan University in Shanghai who tortured dozens of cats to death for fun. According to the information revealed on MITBBS, PetSky and TianYa, Liangliang Zhang is a 3th year graduate student in Master program of Mathematics. His school BBS ID is yuhzll. He is also the Head of the Department of Propaganda, Graduate Students Association at Fudan University.

It was alleged that he adopted dozens of cats from his classmates, animal shelters and pet stores, only to have their eyes removed, and then either discarded or tortured to death. Some of these cats were originally rescued by cat loving students.

Some students of an online pet discussion forum noticed that he had adopted dozens of cats from members of that forum alone within a couple of months. One of the previous cat owner and her friends insisted in visiting his house to see how is the cat doing. They found the cat in a case, but the places used to hold the eyes were bleeding holes. The photo they took at the scene has been archived, but is determined too bloody to be displayed. Confronted by the students, Liangliang Zhang denied it's the same cat that he took from the previous owner. He told them the cat was purchased from a pet store with wound in eyes.

Under mounting pressure from Chinese Internet surfers and especially bloggers, Liangliang Zhang later confessed (voice recorded) that torturing cats had been a way for him to handle pressure, and that he had beaten several cats to death. The pictured cat found with bleeding eyes was stabbed by a pair of long sharp scissors more than 20 times. On the peak of the controversy, Liangliang Zhang registered an ID 'Fudan Scissorhands', which was booed as a contempt to the public outcry. The analogy couldn't be worse: in the 1990 movie, Edward Scissorhands is such as nice person that he won every body's heart, while the Fudan counterpart has little heart of his own.

With more information surfaced, it turned out that Liangliang Zhang had been caught with abusing cats approximately one month ago, but was let go as pet lovers wouldn't want to see his otherwise bright future doomed. He swore that he would never adopt cats from Fudan students, which he would have little chance to, as the online forum members alerted each other not to give him any cats. After that, he turned to local pet stores. Dozens more cats were beaten and stabbed to death. In his most recent posting title 'Last Confession', Liangliagn Zhang threatened that if he were not let go again, he would use all his life time searching for cats on every corner of the street, and torture them to death. At this point, the students were determined to alerte the public. Although Liangliang Zhang will not be punished by any legal measure with no animal cruelty law in existence in China, students wish their voice could be heard by all pet owners and shelter operators so that Liangliang Zhang will not obtain any cat in the future.

Confronted by fellow schoolmates, Liangliang Zhang touted that his father was a trustee of Fudan University. According to document online, there are two Fudan trustees whose names are Enzhao Zhang, and Rongkun Zhang. Because Zhang is one of the most popular family names among Chinese, it's not immediately clear whether either has family tie to Liangliang Zhang. However in a stunning move, Fudan authority abruptly closed an online forum where the incident was firstly reported and issued a gag order on any discussions surrounding this subject.

Liangliang Zhang has been actively seeking opportunities of advanced study in western counties such as the UK, Australia, Singapore, Canada and the US, correlated by his online posting records tracked by the pet caring community. In one post, he claimed he had an interview scheduled with the University of Cambridge at the time of writing.

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